Holospark recently released Earthfall and the reviews have slowly begun to trickle in. Not so surprisingly, emotions have been mixed. There is generally a problem when audiences can only focus on another game. For example, Left 4 Dead rings a bell with many players of Earthfall but there is a possibility that the developers are still working toward a good game or simply missed the mark.
Originally seeing the banners for Earthfall, there seemed to be something eerily familiar to most co-op games since the game boasts a game with friends set in an open location. The characters seem relatively normal in style and most day to day outfits which seemed a bit welcoming. When the storyline, the little that was given anyway, was made known, nothing too adrenaline inducing started happening.
Set in a post apocalyptic world where aliens have started destroying the planet, everyday people must use what they have in order to fight back. Luckily, what they have is a set of at least 10 weapons to choose from and a 3D printer. Along with weapons, Earthfall also comes with the ability to set up defense points and use things such as barricades and turrets. In a pretty liberal set up as well, resources are never super far. So far, these things are pretty status quo for the type of game.
When shooting enemies there comes a time where frustration sets in. The ability to aim and focus just doesn’t sit well which causes a lot of missed opportunities. Firing some weapons too is disappointing. For example, a shotgun should really have some kick to it and the kickback and sound don’t hit as hard as it should. Not to mention, the aliens being destroyed don’t react accordingly. Some lose a limb and dwindle a bit but don’t react in a massive way that would be indicative of a large gun wound, so this is a real bummer.
After getting in to the rhythm, the five different story lines that are linear at best and try to somewhat to tie back in to the main objective, everything became very repetitive. This even included the aliens. There may be three total types of aliens to beat and two bosses that don’t require much else in the way of strategy to conquer. The enemies all work slightly different such as snatching up a member of the team and being very hard to hear but they aren’t too hard to take down, they are just more annoying than anything.
When setting up a co-op to play, connections can be brutal. Is a member of the team leaves for any reason or has a crap connection, the game is over. So if the developers had some type of way to ensure connections worked nicely with others then a group game could work. Otherwise players can expect to have their teams filled in with fake team members in order to play through the missions. The goal over and over again became killing the aliens and keep moving.
Compared to a decade old game, Earthfall just feels repetitive. The ability to change the difficulty level is nice but doesn’t change much. Somehow the game has fallen short on giving players a storyline and the giving players a challenge. This so far feels like a watered down version of what the game could have been.
5/10
Available on: PS4, Xbox, PC
